I picked my copy up last night and played for about an hour. I'm really pleased with the purchase. I mean, it IS a 2D Castlevania after all. The new character switching works really well in the game, and the coolest thing is that when you switch characters on the fly there's no hang-up... just a short sprite swap and that's it. The puzzles that use both characters are pretty cool, too, so that's a plus. Put some thinkin' into my explorin', will ya!

Other cool stuff:

- big enemies that fill up most of a room (not bosses)
- a really hard first boss (I can just imagine the later ones)
- SotN style pick-ups (Health and Heart Max UP)
- the ability to use either whips or weapons

So I beat the first "part" of the game, and I'm moving on into the second. For the first time in a while, I'm actually looking forward to my commute into work today.

I'm so looking forward to this and a little gutted I didn't manage to get the LE booklet and cd thingy. While there is always postives and negatives with Castlevania, there hasn't been a 2D version in years that I haven't really enjoyed.

Tell us more!

So far I've beaten the first two "parts" of the game. Gameplay spoilers below for people who want to find out how things run this time around on their own.....

This reminds me a lot of Mario 64. Listen! There's the castle (with amazing music, btw), and within the castle are paintings that you go into that are of different levels. I've gone through the town portrait and the pyramid portrait so far. It's SotN-style gameplay in new locales, which is AWESOME. It's better than, oh, here's the Castlevania lab, here's the Castlevania garden, etc. It's very familiar (some enemies WILL NOT GO AWAY EVER, right Skeleton Archer?) but it's fresh at the same time.

The puzzles are cool. For example, you get this wonky double jump where you need your partner on the screen and you jump off of his/her shoulders. Way cool. Then you get another normal double jump later on. Cooler. But jumping off of your partner's shoulders and then double jumping even higher to get sweet items and shit? The coolest. There are other commands, like telling your partner to stay where he/she is standing. There was one puzzle pre-double jump that made you hop on top of a pillar, then command your partner to stay. You have to jump down, push the pillar across the level, and then switch your control to the partner on the pillar so you can progress. It's really great.

The pyramid boss was tough as nails until I realized that I had a bomb special ability called 1,000 Knives (or something like that), kind of like the 1,000 Needles from FF. I tooled on the boss by only using that twice... after figuring out her really annoying attack pattern.

But, yeah. It's similar to 2D Castlevanias, but I'm going to say it's less straight forward 'vania than the past few outings. And that, my friends, is a very good thing.

Jonathan!
Charlotte!
Jonathan!
Charlotte!

Switching characters gives me such a... pokemon feeling. *shrug*

I like it a lot so far.  I'm not very far though, so perhaps I will have more to say once I've played a bit more of it.

Was the first boss the guy who chased me through the breakable walls? If so, I ran for the hills and didn't even try to beat him. :\

So I'm guessing there's no option to switch dialogue to Japanese as was once rumored? Not to sound Wapanese, but the above is why I generally don't care for English dubbing. With Japanese, I can't understand what they're saying, so hamminess is not as apparent.

I got the game--and the preorder bonus!--but I haven't had time to crack it open yet (I should finish FFV first, too). Can't wait, though. Castlevania is pretty much the only series that I burn with desire to play new (2D) installments of.

Yep, you can; same way as the Japanese release, just hold L as you press the A button before you make your game mode choice. 

I'm just starting out on the game myself.  Sticking to the English voices, and I was wholly amused by Zacchino's melodramatic "I love you!" and "Don't reject me!" when you're playing as Charlotte -- and him striking you if you're Jonathan.  o_O

Thank you.  This will save me quite a bit of aggravation.